Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass

36 Not he, adhesive, kissing me so long with his daily kiss,
Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him,
Any more than I am held to the heavens, to the spiritual world,
And to the identities of the Gods, my unknown lovers,
After what they have done to me, suggesting such themes.

37 O such themes! Equalities!
O amazement of things! O divine average!
O warblings under the sun—ushered, as now, or at noon, or setting!
O strain, musical, flowing through ages—now reaching hither,
I take to your reckless and composite chords—I add to them, and cheerfully pass them forward.

38 As I have walked in Alabama my morning walk,
I have seen where the she-bird, the mocking-bird, sat on her nest in the briers, hatching her brood.

39 I have seen the he-bird also,
I have paused to hear him, near at hand, inflating his throat, and joyfully singing.

40 And while I paused, it came to me that what he really sang for was not there only,
Nor for his mate nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes,
But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,
A charge transmitted, and gift occult, for those being born.

41 Democracy!
Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully singing.

42 Ma femme!
For the brood beyond us and of us,
For those who belong here, and those to come,
I, exultant, to be ready for them, will now shake out carols stronger and haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon the earth.

43 I will make the songs of passions, to give them their way,
And your songs, offenders—for I scan you with kindred eyes, and carry you with me the same as any.

44 I will make the true poem of riches,
Namely, to earn for the body and the mind, what adheres, and goes forward, and is not dropt by death.

45 I will effuse egotism, and show it underlying all—And I will be the bard of Personality;
And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other,
And I will show that there is no imperfection in male or female, or in the earth, or in the present—and can be none in the future,
And I will show that whatever happens to anybody, it may be turned to beautiful results—And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death;
And I will thread a thread through my poems that no one thing in the universe is inferior to another thing,
And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.

46 I will not make poems with reference to parts,
But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts, with reference to ensemble;
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days,
And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has reference to the Soul,
Because, having looked at the objects of the universe, I find there is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the Soul.

47 Was somebody asking to see the Soul?
See! your own shape and countenance—persons, substances, beasts, the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.

48 All hold spiritual joys, and afterward loosen them,
How can the real body ever die, and be buried?

49 Of your real body, and any man’s or woman’s real body, item for item, it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners, and pass to fitting spheres, carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the moment of death.

50 Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the meaning, the main concern, any more than a man’s substance and life, or a woman’s substance and life, return in the body and the Soul, indifferently before death and after death.

51 Behold! the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern—and includes and is the Soul;
Whoever you are! how superb and how divine is your body, or any part of it.

52 Whoever you are! to you endless announcements.

53 Daughter of the lands, did you wait for your poet?
Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand?

54 Toward the male of The States, and toward the female of The States,
Toward the President, the Congress, the diverse Governors, the new Judiciary,
Live words—words to the lands.

55 O the lands!
Lands scorning invaders! Interlinked, food-yielding lands!
Land of coal and iron! Land of gold! Lands of cotton, sugar, rice!
Odorous and sunny land! Floridian land!
Land of the spinal river, the Mississippi! Land of the Alleghanies! Ohio’s land!
Land of wheat, beef, pork! Land of wool and hemp! Land of the potato, the apple, and the grape!
Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! Land of those sweet-aired interminable plateaus! Land there of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie! Land there of rapt thought, and of the realization of the stars! Land of simple, holy, untamed lives!
Lands where the northwest Columbia winds, and where the southwest Colorado winds!
Land of the Chesapeake! Land of the Delaware!
Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!
Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! Land of Vermont and Connecticut!
Land of many oceans! Land of sierras and peaks!
Land of boatmen and sailors! Fishermen’s land!
Inextricable lands! the clutched together! the passionate lovers!
The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limbed!
The great women’s land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and the inexperienced sisters!
Far breath’d land! Arctic braced! Mexican breezed! the diverse! the compact!
The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian!
O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I cannot be discharged from you!
O Death! O for all that, I am yet of you, unseen, this hour, with irrepressible love,
Walking New England, a friend, a traveller,
Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples, on Paumanok’s sands,
Crossing the prairies—dwelling again in Chicago—dwelling in many towns,
Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,
Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls,
Of and through The States, as during life—each man and woman my neighbor,
The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her,
The Mississippian and Arkansian—the woman and man of Utah, Dakotah, Nebraska, yet with me—and I yet with any of them,
Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river—yet in my house of adobie,
Yet returning eastward—yet in the Sea-Side State, or in Maryland,
Yet a child of the North—yet Kanadian, cheerily braving the winter—the snow and ice welcome to me,
Yet a true son either of Maine, or of the Granite State, or of the Narragansett Bay State, or of the Empire State,
Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same—yet welcoming every new brother,
Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones, from the hour they unite with the old ones,
Coming among the new ones myself, to be their companion—coming personally to you now,
Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.

56 With me, with firm holding—yet haste, haste on.

57 For your life, adhere to me,
Of all the men of the earth, I only can unloose you and toughen you,
I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself to you—but what of that?
Must not Nature be persuaded many times?